I'm Still Here: A Novel Page 4

  Watching the casket disappear beneath the earth brought home the finality of it all and Kara found herself beginning to break. Warm tears spilled over, staining her cheeks, salty and wet. In that moment memories of her mother rose to the surface. She saw birthdays, Thanksgiving, Christmas, trips to the beach, hugs, tears, her mother walking her to school, school plays, after-school baking, meals around the table, game nights, movies and pizza, it all flooded in one after the other along with a heavy dose of guilt. Why hadn’t she phoned more? Why did she spend all her time working? Why did she choose to move so far away from Washington State? The whys never stopped even as the crowd thinned and she, her father and Uncle Rob were the only ones remaining.

  Silence dominated except for the patter of rain.

  As Rob laid a hand on her father’s shoulder, in an instant the once-hard exterior that so often took over fell away to reveal the broken man buried beneath.

  Thirty-nine years and it was the first time she’d seen her father cry.

  By 1 p.m. that afternoon, everyone reconvened at her parents’ house just off Harmony Crescent. It wasn’t one of the well-to-do areas in town, or even a new development. Nestled in thick woodland, and off one of the major throughways, the home was located in a neighborhood that was often used by kids for playing basketball. Occasionally a car would honk its horn and they would move but for the most part, people who lived nearby were considerate. The street was lined on either side with overhanging oak trees that seemed to reach out like gnarled fingers. A fifteen-minute walk from her high school, and only ten minutes from the spot where Charlie was taken, it held many memories, some of which she preferred to forget. It was an average American, two-story red brick home with a wraparound porch and enough room inside to entertain roughly eight dinner guests, any more than that and people would be chewing on elbows and have to spill out into the yard — and that was exactly what happened that afternoon. Fortunately the rain had let up, and a speck of blue sky was trying to peek out from under the belly of a brooding cloud. Aunt Janice took that as a sign of Anna smiling down upon them; everyone just offered thin smiles out of respect. Janice had always been like that — spiritual, that was. She could see Buddha in a piece of toast if someone burned it the right way. Still, she meant well.

  Returning home that afternoon was bittersweet for many reasons. Stepping inside she expected to hear her mother’s voice, feel the warmth of her hug and a kiss on the cheek. Instead it felt oddly cold, almost like it had in the days after the abduction. Until that night her mother had worked for Lakeview Village Retirement Home. Although her shifts varied, from what Kara could recall from her early years, she was mostly there when they came home from school. She was a woman given to good books, painting, home décor, baking and spending time with friends. But that all changed after the incident. She gave it all up, spending less and less time with friends, allowing the home to fall into disrepair, and instead funneled her energy into doing whatever she could to bring Charlie home. For a time it was like nothing else mattered or existed, including Kara. She was pawned off to her auntie’s on the days when it was really bad. Her parents were so distraught and lost in grief they couldn’t see they were losing the one child they had left. All Kara wanted was for them to reassure her that it wouldn’t happen again. The only time she felt safe was when the police were at their home, it was part of the reason why she turned to a career in law enforcement many years later, that and the desire to feel a sense of control over what had felt so out of control.

  Now as she wandered through the home, after six years of being away she noticed how much had changed. Piles of clothes ready for the laundry were still by the washing machine, dishes from previous nights remained in the sink, the trash can was overflowing, and the pride and joy of her mother’s home — the yard was overgrown, and the flowerbeds contained only weeds and wildflowers. It was like both of them had given up or had only managed to do the bare minimum. Something about the picture wasn’t right. This wasn’t like her mother — sure, she had been spending more time looking into the case even after Kyle Harris was in prison, but her conversations on the phone seemed normal — at least she had never let on that there was a problem. And her father, well, he didn’t answer the phone so anything she did know was filtered through her mother.

  Within twenty minutes, it was a total circus in the house. Flowers were placed in vases and Janice set them down in various spots. Finger foods were handed out on her mother’s trays, and the smell of cigarette smoke filled the house. Whatever respect people had for the dead went out the window once Uncle Rob started handing out glasses of scotch instead of cups of coffee. After that it was a burst of interaction. Everyone had something to say, and much of what was said was quickly forgotten. Her mother would have controlled the chaos as people traipsed through rooms pointing to photos and treating the home like a museum. Out-of-place laughter erupted in the kitchen, and before she knew it Aunt Janice had taken Kara by the arm and was guiding her from one group to the next, introducing her to complete strangers.

  Then came the horde of relatives, young, old, in a wheelchair, in a baby seat. Chatter swirled around her rising and falling like a party. Relatives on her mother’s side of the family would say how much she looked like her mother. Friends would ask how long she was staying. Cousins pushed their kids in front of her yakking about their natural talent of learning. Four people talked simultaneously as one man gave his best wishes through a tracheostomy speaking valve after suffering throat cancer. All around her she saw facial similarities to her mother. Someone held out a photo album and jabbed a photo of her mother from her high school days. And if that wasn’t enough, Lloyd Benson slipped a business card into her hand. “It’s been a while. My condolences, Kara. I knew your mother well. Your father said you’re struggling. Call me. We’ll talk.”

  Before she could reply he melted into the crowd and someone else took his place.

  “Hi Kara, Matthew says you’re an investigator with the New York Bureau of Investigation. My son is looking to get into that, maybe you can speak with him later,” said a woman who she vaguely remembered as the secretary at her father’s work. People swirled around her in a dizzying fashion. Too close. Too loud. Smiling. Teary eyed. She witnessed the full gamut of emotions as she bounced from person to person like a pinball. She could feel her heart pounding in her chest. Unable to take it any further, she entered the one area of the home that was off-limits due to it having been the place her mother had taken her life – the basement. As soon as she was behind the door she pressed her back against it and breathed out a relieved sigh. The noise of the home was muted by the thickness of the door. The stairwell was dark as she fumbled around for the cord. One tug and a yellow glow emanated at the bottom of the stairs and partially lit the way. The basement was unfinished. It was one of the many tasks on her father’s to-do list that he’d never got around to. Kara swallowed as her heartbeat slowed and she made her way down.

  The basement was spacious with concrete floors, exposed wooden beams, steel pillars and a workbench at the far end. Old tattered boxes lined the walls, along with a few pieces of old leather furniture; a couch, two chairs, and a thick mahogany coffee table that doubled as TV stand. In all the years she’d lived in that home, they’d never used it for anything more than storage until October 31, 1991. After, that it became her parents’ central hub for keeping boxes of flyers, posters, buttons, T-shirts, folders with news clippings and candles used for vigils. She’d only ever been down there once in twenty-five years and that was when the home was overrun with law enforcement. She recalled finding her mother organizing flyers. There were some nights she didn’t emerge from the basement until late in the evening, and even then she would return after having eaten dinner. Kara had come to resent the basement, and so to learn that was where her mother took her final breath made it even more unbearable to be in.

  At the bottom of the stairs she stopped and gazed up at the wooden beams. Which one had it been? Had she u
sed a footstool? What did she tie around her throat? Her imagination went there but quickly returned as she closed her eyes and pressed on toward the far end. The basement extended the full length of the home, sections had been divided off with the goal of eventually turning it into a suite for her father’s mother but that never happened.

  Kara ventured farther in, squeezing between boxes until she rounded a corner and turned on a second light. That’s when her jaw dropped.

  Chapter 5

  Evidence. Theories. Connections. Three walls of corkboard covered in a cluttered mosaic of newspaper cuttings, missing posters, sticky notes, maps, and photographs of young boys and family members, along with a desktop computer, a printer and a laptop resting on a desk. Covering the desk were a couple of empty coffee-stained cups and a French press with dark granules covered in green mold that had formed on the surface. Kara walked into the midst of the room, turning slowly a hundred and eighty degrees. Her eyes soaked in the mishmash of images, handwritten scrawlings, clipboards, folders, stacks of paperwork, numerous colorful push pins, and red string connecting photos, locations and timelines in an intricate web that could have rivaled the investigation wall of the Swanson case. But this wasn’t the Swanson case. What the hell is this? she thought. Kara was aware of her mother’s advocacy in protecting children from abduction and abuse, she knew she was very vocal about the sex offender registry laws and aware she’d given her time as a member of the board of directors for the International Centre for Missing and Exploited Children but that was to be expected — so many parents of missing and murdered children went on to be involved in some form of public speaking but this went beyond that.

  Kara heard heavy footsteps behind her. Startled she spun around to find Bobby Evans. Instinctively she placed a hand on her chest. “Damn it, Bobby, you startled me.”

  “Sorry,” he thumbed over his shoulder. “I saw you head into the basement.” He raised his eyebrows. “Pretty wild upstairs, isn’t it?”

  “That’s an understatement.”

  There was a pause as they studied one another for a second or two.

  “It’s been a long time,” he said casually.

  She squinted and replied in a soft contemplative tone. “That it has.”

  “How have you been? You look well.”

  She breathed in deeply and glanced at the wall again before returning her gaze to him.

  “Thank you. So do you.”

  “Hardly.” He ran a hand over his bald head. He ambled forward, his eyes washing over the walls. “I’m sorry about your mother. She was a good woman, always kind to me.”

  Kara dipped her chin ever so slightly.

  “Quite a setup, isn’t it?”

  “You knew about this?”

  He scoffed. “Who didn’t?” He continued to speak as he ran his fingers over the table and leaned in to look at the map. “Yep, she was a thorn in the side of the county sheriff department, and there wasn’t a damn thing they could do about it.” He cleared his throat still examining the map. “Do you know there wasn’t a week that went by that I didn’t see her out chatting to someone in town? Hell, she phoned me at least once a month, you know, to see how I was doing, but mostly to find out if I could recall anything more about that night. Even offered to pay for a hypnosis session. Can you believe that?” He turned towards her and rolled his bottom lip under his coffee-stained teeth. “I couldn’t. Remember, that is. Can you?”

  She stared back at him chewing his words. A flash of memories besieged her mind. Laughter. Halloween outfits. Swiping cigarettes. The feel of a Zippo lighter in her pocket. The anticipation of meeting Bobby. Childish attempts at trying to impress him. Then the woods, the darkness, the sick smell of cheap cologne, a flash of a steely knife under the light of the moon, and then a huge masked man followed by a deep booming voice saying to run. Tears and…

  Inpatient for an answer or just eager to continue, Bobby said, “I can barely remember what happened last month. Hard to think it was twenty-five years ago.” He shook his head. “Your mom always thought he was still out there. She refused to believe that Kyle Harris was the man even though your father accepted it, and so did most of the folks in town. But he had a reputation, you know. Harris I mean. Some say the police just wanted to close the case, and he happened to fit the bill. Myself, I don’t know. People think that because we heard his voice we should have been able to distinguish if it was him but the guy spoke through gritted teeth, or a scrambler, I think.” He inhaled sharply. “Anyway, at least that’s the way it sounded to me. What about you?”

  “I try not to think about it.”

  “Yeah, probably for the best. I know I’ve tried to put it behind me but that night changed me, you know? It’s like a part of me was taken that night.”

  He put into words exactly what she had felt too. That the abductor hadn’t just taken her brother, he’d taken much more from them that night — their innocence. For weeks after the event she didn’t sleep in her bed out of fear that he would return and take her. She slept in her parents’ room on a blow-up mattress and even then she didn’t feel safe. For a long time she felt scared, wondering who would be next. But that wasn’t the hardest thing to deal with, it was the guilt. She blamed herself for what happened that night. In many ways she was still out there in the woods, running.

  Her thoughts were interrupted by the sound of a female voice calling out at the top of the stairs.

  “Bobby, you down there?”

  He rolled his eyes. “Oh great, she found me,” he said in a low voice with a smirk on his face. “Can’t get a moment’s peace.” He put up a finger and walked to the bottom of the steps. “I’m here, Lisa.”

  “What are you doing down there?”

  “Chatting with Kara. I’ll be up in a minute.”

  That response obviously didn’t satisfy her as she trudged down the steps. “Millie has thrown up and I’m all out of baby wipes. I think we should head out now.” When she reached the bottom of the steps she turned towards Kara and glared.

  Lisa Brown, now known as Lisa Evans, had been one of the girls in school that had earned a reputation of having screwed practically all the guys on the football team. Of course they were all a step up towards getting with Bobby, who at the time had been one of the best on the Blackmore varsity football team. Lisa and Kara had never really liked each other. She had her own circle of friends and after word got out that Bobby had been in the woods on the night of the abduction, it opened up a whole host of questions and accusations. So it was no surprise that Lisa ended up with him. She’d never really had any aspirations of getting out of their small town, and after Bobby knocked her up at the ripe age of nineteen that sealed the deal. Since then she’d become a baby machine and a stay-at-home mom. She was now in her late thirties; her thick dark locks that once attracted the boys were dyed blond, thinned out and looked like a rat’s nest. She was also twice the size but motherhood could do that. The only thing that remained the same was her sense of fashion. She’d always been a brand-name gal. No doubt if Kara asked her what she was wearing she would have reeled off some brand like she was a celebrity on the red carpet.

  “Oh, Kara.” A look of fake sympathy crossed her face. Kara knew she was only here because of Bobby. Lisa looked her up and down with judgmental eyes, then she caught sight of the crazy boards behind her and her brow pinched. “My condolences on your mother. I never really had a chance to get to know her but Bobby said she was nice. Will you be in town long?”

  “A few days. Just to support my father.”

  “We should get together for a drink, tonight,” Bobby blurted out to the horror of his wife. He brought a fist up to his mouth and coughed. “Or tomorrow.”

  “Bobby!” she said in a reprimanding tone as if he didn’t have a life of his own or couldn’t meet up with an old friend.

  He shrugged and screwed up his face. “What?”

  Lisa noticed Kara was waiting for her response. She straightened up. “Kara has more impo
rtant things to do than waste her time getting drunk with you.”

  “Actually, that would be nice,” Kara said. “I mean having a drink. Not the drunk part.” She anticipated her father would be two sheets to the wind by late afternoon and any chance of getting a normal conversation out of him would be next to zero, so going for a drink sounded right up her alley. It would also give her time to clear her head and maybe make sense of what her mother was doing in the days leading up to taking her life.

  “See!” he said, his eyes bouncing between the two of them. “For old times’ sake.”

  Lisa shook her head. “For all times’ sake,” she scoffed and turned toward the stairs. “Let’s go, Bobby.”

  Bobby stood there looking slightly embarrassed. “I’ll phone this evening, just in case you change your mind. No pressure.”

  “Sure,” Kara replied.

  “Bobby!” Lisa’s high-pitched voice echoed.

  “I should go. We’ll catch up later. Really good to see you, Kara.” He flashed a grin, grabbed a hold of the wooden railing and launched himself up three steps with all the zeal of a teenager.

  “Yeah, same,” she said offering back a warm smile. “Oh Bobby. You wouldn’t know if Sam is still in town, would you?”

  He ducked his head back down. “He’s around. Works in construction. Off and on. He lives in Sunrise Trailer Park. I can dig up his phone number, if you want?” he said pulling out his phone and was just about to do it when Lisa’s voice screeched like nails going down a chalkboard.

  “Bobby!”

  He rolled his eyes.

  “It’s fine. I’ll get it from you later. It’s not urgent,” she said.